Stalking Is Not A Good Thing To Do - Tumblr Posts

7 months ago

I'm a sucker for angst, so I'mma go the mid-vivisection route

Compartmentalizing had always been an effective way of dealing with emotions, especially when he knew they were going to get in his way. He could deal with the shock and grief over his newly discovered child later. He had to save him first.

The trip from his office in the Upper East Side to Wayne Manor in Bristol had never taken so long before. There was no traffic, and he'd hit every green light, but the trip was agonizing for him. Every second he wasted was a seconded that his son could be hurt or worse.

He didn't want to think about worse. Not again. Not ever again.

Damian was in the Cave when he got there, narrowing down the location of the video the best he could. Danny had sat against a wall below an open window, a tiny crack to the outside world visible at the very top of the screen. It didn't give much, but it was enough. If all else failed, they'd have Barbra or Tim take a look at it.

Bruce was quick to suit up and get both the Batplane and the Batmobile ready to go incase either or both was needed. Once finished, he switched out so that Damian could go suit up and ready his bike.

Through the crack in the window, there was wide area - likely a yard - visible. There was no fence to mark the edge of the property, nor were there any houses, so the house must be on the outskirts of whatever town or city it's located. In the distance, there was a sign. Because it was so far away, even zooming in and enhancing the picture didn't reveal much. He did, however, get RK, ILLINOIS and a three digit population out of it, limiting their starting location significantly.

A list of town and city names ending in 'rk' within the state, led Bruce to thirty-one possible locations: Amity Park, Aroma Park, Beach Park, Bedford Park, Calumet Park, Cissna Park, Deer Park, Elmwood Park, Evergreen Park, Forest Park, Franklin Park, Hanover Park, Highland Park, Hopkins Park, Indian Head Park, La Grange Park, Loves Park, Machesney Park, Maple Park, Mark, Merrionette Park, Oak Park, Orland Park, Palos Park, Richton Park, Round Lake Park, Schiller Park, Stone Park, Tinley Park, Villa Park, Washington Park.

With the three digit population count, he managed to narrow the list down to Amity Park, Aroma Park, Bedford Park, Cissna Park, Hopkins Park, and Mark. Still too many to check in person.

Bruce's next - it should've been the first - step was to run a screenshot of Danny's face from his video through Facial Recognition with the specifics of those six places. By then, Damian had dressed and rejoined him at the Batcomputer. They waited impatiently for results to come in.

Daniel Fenton Feb. 12, 2000 Amity Park, Illinois Mother: Maddison Fenton Father: Jack Fenton Sister: Jasmine Fenton

Bruce and Damian were quick to put on their masks and get into the Batplane, leaving the Batcomputer on and their findings open.

While Bruce flew, Damian was tasked with watching for anything via traffic and other cameras to see if Danny had left the town. Halfway through the journey, it was discovered that he was kidnapped by people wearing white and driving a white van.

How cliché.

Damian followed the van's trail, relaying to Bruce whenever they crossed city limits. Eventually, they crossed the Northern State Border and into Wisconsin. He told his Father as such.

"Why are they leaving the state?" Bruce wondered aloud. "How are they leaving the state?"

"They have government identification." Damian answered, reviewing the footage in a separate window. He froze the frome, zooming in and enhancing the picture as best he could on the tablet. "G.I.W," he read. "I'm not familiar with the name."

Bruce hummed. "The Ghost Investigation Ward."

"The what?"

"They've been a pain the JLD's asses for the past year, but the Justice League hasn't been able to find solid evidence to get them shut down."

"Should I contact the League?"

"No. We'll figure that out after we get your brother."

Damian nodded and focused back on watching where the van went.

After a few moments of silence, Bruce asked, "Why didn't you tell me?"

He let the question sit for a moment. "When an assassin is killed, they are struck from records. It is made as though they never existed. They are to be forgotten about. Danny was no exception."

Bruce hummed again. "Tell me about him?"

It was a soft request, a tone of voice Damian had never heard from his Father before. Who was he to deny him?

"Danny is older than me by a few minutes. He never used unnecessary violence. He preferred the quiet and became one of the main caretakers for the gardens. He never saw eye-to-eye with Grandfather or Mother, but he only committed small acts to defy them. Other than myself, he got along with ضربة الموت the best."

"'Deathstroke'?" That was a concerning surprise.

"Yes." A beat. "As you know, League Assassins don't use names. Mother is known as شيطان; Demon. I was الصدى; Echo. Danny was الروح; Spirit."

"Oh? Why those names?"

"'الصدى' is because I am the second born. 'الروح' is because Danny nearly did not survive his birth."

"What happened?"

"I do not know. Mother never told me. I ever asked."

"I see."

The white van disappeared just outside of Maddison, Wisconsin. THe footage was nearly a week old, but it was all they had to go off of. Forwarding the footage revealed that the van had not made a reappearance since it first arrived. The flight time from Gotham, New Jersey to Maddison, Wisconsin is two hours and eighteen minutes. Bruce got there in an hour.

They landed the Batplane several miles away from the town, using the bikes they had loaded before leaving to circle the city while looking for anything that could give them a lead as to where Dany had been taken.

There were two buildings outside of the city that Batman and Robin flagged. The first was a castle registered under the name Masters, the same man who is mayor of Amity Park. The other building was a weather-worn cottage and shed directly opposite the castle.

They chose to investigate the run-down cottage first.

Inside was nothing special. It was empty and dirty. However, there was no dust and no plants overtaking the wood. Clearly people were coming and going at a consistent rate. The garage was much the same with the addition of the white van they'd been tracking.

"In and out," Batman told Robin who nodded. "Getting Danny out is priority. Knock assailants unconscious."

"What about the JL investigation into these G.I.W people?"

"I will handle it if we have time. For now, we go undetected for as long as we can."

"Yes, Father."

The only closed door inside the cottage opened up to an elevator with no cameras inside. They blocked it off from inside before going to LL1, acting to corner everyone in anticipation of them trying to flee.

Every wall, door, floor, and ceiling was white. Windows into rooms were tinted white, too. There was no one on the floor. Every room they looked into had horrible security measures (read: none at all). All but one were obviously labs, the last one being a mix between a records room and an office.

LL2 was much the same. Everything was white. Instead of labs, though, the rooms all appeared to be unused cells, aside from one room that acted as an office/records room. There was a total of seven people on this level. No one had managed to call an alarm.

LL3 is where the unfortunate party began. There were only three white rooms on this floor, not including the hallway. Two large labs on either side fitted out with cloning equipment, and an office at the end that held records of everything that happened on that floor. There was nineteen people on this floor, eight in each of the labs and the last three in the office. Like the floors above, Batman and Robin knocked out every individual they came across. Unluckily, the man they assume was in charge of the floor managed to set an alarm, dying the silent white hall and rooms red with a blaring siren.

Batman and Robin rushed to the lift, catching it before it crushed the Batarang keeping it open, and taking it down to the final floor.

LL4 met them with prepared resistance. Twenty agents pointed white and green weapons at them, though there wasn't a single gun between any of them. They were repetitive to fight, but easy to take down with a few punches.

Unlike the other three floors, this one's hallway ran on either side of the elevator instead of directly in front of it. There was only one room on this floor. Two large, white-tinted windows looked into it on either side of a white steel door. Inside looked like an ER Center. A single surgical table was bolted to the ground in the center of the room. Against the left wall was a cage, against the right was a desk and two filing cabinets. There was a light directly above the table, a lamp on the desk, and two floor lamps point at the table. There were several carts and trays with a variety of surgical and torture instruments on them. What stood out at first was that the room was covered in toxic green and blood red splotches.

Danny lay on the table, surrounded by five doctors. His entire abdomen had been cut open with a Y shaped incision and his ribs were broken to bend up, allowing access to his organs. The equipment he'd been attached to said that he was still alive, his lungs inflating and his body reacting to the doctors' touches confirmed this. One of them had been rooting around in his body, seemingly unaware of the alarm outside of the room. The hands came out of the body holding the child's liver, putting it on an empty tray.

It was horrifying.

Batman and Robin were harsher with the people on this floor, several ending up with stab wounds before they were allowed the mercy of unconsciousness. The door was unlocked, making it easy for them to enter the room. The people inside were all unprepared to fight and all five of them went down easy.

Now faced with his child, split open on a table, Bruce felt himself freezing up. He knew he had to move, to get his sone somewhere safe so that he could heal, but he couldn't move. He'd seen so much in his time; so much horror, so much death; but he hadn't evr frozen up like this before.

No. That was a lie. He'd frozen up when Jason had been killed. He frozen up when Tim had been taken and poisoned by The Joker. He'd frozen up when Barbra had been hurt so irreparably. He'd frozen up when Stephanie had 'died'. He'd frozen up when Dick had been taken by the Court of Owls. He'd frozen up when Damian had died. He'd frozen up when Cass had taken the position as head of the LoA. But he'd frozen up after that had all happened to his children, after he'd done what he could to help them, after they'd all suffered. He didn't have time to freeze up right now, but he couldn't force himself to move.

It wasn't until Robin had folded Danny's skin closed, snapping his ribs into place and preparing to stitch him up, that Batman moved.

Danny had screamed when either of them touched him, forcing his right eye open. Recognition flashed in his visible eye. "Heal-" he forced, his voice no louder than a whisper and sounding like he'd swallowed gravel. "Liv-"

Batman took a guess as to what he was trying to say. "You'll heal, right?" A nod. "You want me to put your liver back inside of you?" Danny shook his head and Batman felt relief flood him. He was not ready to stuff organs inside of his child. He picked up a curved needle and thread, ready to stitch him up. He went as fast as he could, but it still took too long.

"I've contacted the Justice League about this place, Batman," Robin came back into the room. "They'll have agents here within the hour."

"Good." He tied off the last stitch, setting the needle to the side. "We're taking him back to Gotham."

"Should we not wait for the Justice League? They have far better doctors."

Danny flinched at the mention of medical personal, pain covering his face again as he closed his eyes.

"We'll tread him in the Cave."

Robin nodded. "I'll alert Agent A-"

Danny whimpered at the name.

"I'll alert Nightwing," he corrected.

Batman hadn't looked away from Danny once. Now, though, he spoke directly to him. "I'm going to pick you up and carry you. It's going to hurt, but I have to get you safe. Is that okay."

The response he got was a small, jerky nod. "Y-yes."

"Good," Batman carefully slipped his arms under Danny's legs and back. "I'm sorry I was late." he said as he lifted him.

Danny's mouth opened in a silent scream before he buried his face the best he could into Batman's shoulder. "Not late." He reached up to grasp the fabric of his cape. "Not late."

DPxDC prompt (demon twins au)

A video from your son, the email was titled. Bruce was confused. Which of his kids would send a video to his public work email??

Bruce clicked play.

On the screen was a boy who look a lot like Damian, but most certainly wasn’t him.

“This video is for the eyes of Bruce Wayne only.

Hi Dad. I’m Danny. You likely don’t know I exist, and if you’re receiving this, I’m already dead. Well, more dead than I already was. Maybe it’s cruel of me to send you a message post-mortem, but you deserve the truth, and telling you earlier would’ve put you in danger.

This email is set to automatically send if I haven’t opened my computer for 3 days. I sometimes set it longer if I’m on vacation or expecting trouble, but I’ve mostly likely been away from home for a bit over three days if you’re receiving this.

I don’t know who killed me. Obviously. I’m recording this in advance. But it was probably either the GIW or my adoptive parents, the Fentons. I half-died at 14 and became a local ghost superhero, but they never realized I was trying to help and kept talking about tearing ghost-me apart molecule by molecule, so I bet that’s what happened. There will be nothing left of me to bury. Sorry about that!

The rest of the story is this. I was raised in an assassin cult, eventually escaping at the age of 6 when they sent me on mission and I successfully faked my death.

My biggest regret is that I escaped alone. And that’s the reason I’m reaching out to you.

You’re a civilian. If you know too much about the League of Assassins you’ll be in danger. But I need you to save my twin Damian. He’s likely still there after all these years. He never wanted to escape; he took pride in being the heir to the league. He’s probably going to be stabby; he’s an assassin after all. But it’s not his fault. Ra’s - our grandfather - brainwashed him a lot more than he brainwashed me because Damian was more susceptible to it. It’s not his fault. Please. Save him. I’m begging you. My biggest regret is leaving Damian in the league. You have a chance to save him. Please, please do it.

I wish it would’ve been safe for me to get to know you. You seem like a cool dad, from what I’ve seen of you on the news with your oldest kids. I bet you’re like that with the youngest you hide from the public too. I wish you all the best. Thank you for listening.

Your long lost almost certainly dead by now son, Danny Fenton.”

Bruce took a second to process this, then picked up his phone and dialed his youngest’s number.

“Father.”

“Damian, did you have a twin named Danny?”

“…Who told you?”

Bruce hung up and sent Damian the video. He needed a minute to process this anyway.

Damian called back a few minutes later, after watching the video.

“Father. I do not care what state he is in. We must discover exactly what happened to Danny. Even if there is only a single molecule left. We must discover the truth.”

“I couldn’t agree more, Damian.”

Dealer’s choice on whether Danny is alive. The few ideas I have for this are:

- they find him mid-vivisection and rescue him

- they find what’s left of him post-vivisection and post his core being crushed

- he’s perfectly fine and just forgot to open his computer (maybe clockwork made sure he forgot?) and now he’s panicking about the fact that his family knows about him and could be in danger. He wanted them to know he existed, not make themselves a walking target for the league by finding him and trying to bring him home!

- Jazz found the automatic email and, deciding to meddle in her brother’s life and him back to his family and maybe get a good parent for herself as a bonus, sent it early

- Technus decided to start shit and sent it while haunting Danny’s computer

- Clockwork screwed with time to make sure it got sent

Lmk what yall do with this!


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